Practicing photography

The weather forecast for Saturday was clear and sunny so Kelly and I decided to take Alyssa out to see if we could get some good high resolution outdoor photos of her. Most of the photos we have of her are low resolution ones taken with our iPhones. So I got out my D70s and 50mm f/1.8 portrait lens and we headed out to Tusmore Park near to where I grew up. Its a really nice green grassy park with a good playground, creek and tall trees.

By the time we had arrived at the park Alyssa had fallen asleep in her car seat and we lay her down on the grass until she woke up. Although I took almost 200 photos my favourite photo of the set was taken right near the beginning when she was still asleep on the grass.

I like it so much I’m thinking of getting a large canvas print done. When she woke up and realised she was in the park with a playground she was very happy! The lens has such a narrow depth of field that taking photos of her in focus while on the swing was quite difficult.

Same problem with the slide, although this action shot is not framed well, I love the expression on her face it captured.

I think this one would have been really nice if I’d rotated the camera 90 degrees like the one after it. I think she’s lit really well in these two photos and it might have been because of the light coloured pool floor reflecting light up from below her.

I think this one is pretty cute as we didn’t realise she was able to climb up steps that high:

Although it would have been much nicer if I’d framed it like the following which shows how tall the trees in the background are.

It turned out to be a lot cloudier than we expected so the light wasn’t as nice as we were hoping for. I’m really pleased with how some of the photos turned out and I learned quite a bit, so next time there is bright sunny day on the weekend we’ll be out at a park again.

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2 thoughts on “Practicing photography”

Chris, nice pictures!
I have a D50 and got a prime for it 50mm a while back. I can handle it indoors but still struggle outside, especially if the light picks up. I like your picture of her in the swing – background out of focus and the subject with just enough depth of field to show the movement.
I like the setting where you have her raise up her arms – if I may: maybe you could improve it if both her eyes are visible.
The last picture works well also because her head is in nice contrast to the green of the grass.

I have a lot more trouble with my 50mm lense indoors than outside – never seem to have enough light or the flash provides too much light. I agree that the photo with her arms up would have been better if I could have got her to face me. She’s not really at the stage where she’ll follow instructions well yet, so there’s a lot of hit and miss – more miss than hit

Kelly photoshopped the last two photos for me and merged them into the photo I wanted to take – Alyssa climbing out of the wading pool and being able to see the tall trees in the background at the same time.